Rajnikanth was born as Shivaji Rao Gaikwad in a Maratha family but despite Marathi being his mother-tongue; the actor has never done any Marathi movie. He has appeared Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, and Bengali and even in English language movie but he never did a movie in Marathi.

Rajinikanth father Ramoji Rao Gaikwad, was a police constable. He lost his mother Jijabai when he was five years old. He went through an impoverished lifestyle during his childhood.

Rajnikanth often did odd jobs like as a coolie in his community. He was also a Bus conductor at Bangalore Transport Service.

At his early stage of life, Rajnikanth used to take part in stage plays to enjoy his acting talent. He first got chance to act in mythological moral plays, offered by a Kannada playwright and director Topi Muniappa.

After 1973, Rajnikanth started learning to speak Tamil language which proved to be extremely useful in his career.

Rajinikanth has never died in any of his films as the Directors fear that killing his character will send fans on a rampage.

Kamal Hassan is Rajinikanth's favourite actor. He has worked with Kamal in many films.

After the success of Sivaji & Robot, Rajinikanth became the highest paid actor. His started charging fee of Rs. 26 Crores, this made him the highest-paid Asian actor after Jackie Chan.